Optimal Transmission Capacity of Ad Hoc Networks with Packet Retransmissions

Abstract—In this paper we investigate the transmission ca-pacity of wireless networks when packet retransmissions are al-lowed. We consider networks modeled as a homogeneous Poisson point process operating under different medium access control schemes, namely unslotted and slotted ALOHA, and CSMA with carrier sensing at the transmitter and with carrier sensing at the receiver. For these scenarios, we derive analytical expressions to compute the maximum number of retransmissions attempts that leads to the optimal transmission capacity. Numerical results based on our formulation show that CSMA with carrier sensing at the receiver (asynchronous transmissions) reaches the highest maximum transmission capacity when traffic intensity is low, while slotted ALOHA (synchronous transmissions) is the best choice when traffic intensity is high. Index Terms—ad hoc networks, MAC protocols, packet re-transmissions, stochastic geometry, transmission capacity I